


Cost Benefit Analysis

by squidproquo



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence - The Battle of the Blackwater, F/M, This Isn't What It Looks Like, reversal of trope, sansan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidproquo/pseuds/squidproquo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa accepts the Hound's offer to take her from King's Landing on the assumption that she understands what he expects to get out of their exchange.</p><p>She doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Parts I - IV

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally written for personal use only. It's a blatant ripoff of a redcandle17 fic scrap and "Bliss" by the_moonmoth, plus a little bit of (seeming) OOC-ness just for funsies. But I said I'd post a story I hadn't planned on posting once I reached 100 followers on Tumblr, and I am a squid of my word! Sansa is aged up to 17 and Sandor is book canon style (rawr). I hope you enjoy this nonsense, because honestly it's been fun to write when I'm frustrated with everything else :) 
> 
> As always, much thanks to Lady Cyprus, my lovely and stylish beta <3

**I**

“I could keep you safe,” he rasps. “They’re all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them.” 

He yanks her closer and presses his cruel mouth to hers, and she realizes suddenly what it is the Hound offers. Security. Protection. The mightiest most feared warrior in the Seven Kingdoms at her side, cutting down all of her enemies, in exchange for… Well, it’s obvious. The heat of his kiss, the desperation of his touch as he holds her close, the hardness of his manhood against her belly, all of these things prove he wants her. He’ll give her safety if she’ll give herself to him, and the more she thinks about it the more it seems fair. It’s wrong, of course, she knows that. Septa Mordane, gods rest her, would say that any woman who would exchange her favors for some material benefit is a whore. Maybe that’s so. But as the Hound forces his tongue between her lips and tastes her fiercely, she knows that she’d rather be his whore than Joffrey’s wife.

She opens her mouth wider for him and he groans, exploring her for a long while before lifting his head and staring down at her intently. He’s ugly, one of the ugliest men she’s ever seen, even with the dark coating of blood concealing his scars. But he’s strong, so strong, and she believes the promises he’s made.

“Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, please. Take me with you.”

He does.

 

 **II**  

They ride all night and all day, first with her behind him so he has room to swing his sword as they flee the city, then with her in front. He keeps one heavy arm hard across her waist, holding her tight to him, and every now and then his other hand abandons the reins and touches her hair as though to make certain she’s real. It’s nice, his hands in her hair, his solid body behind her, and she relaxes against him. She sleeps securely in the saddle and has no regrets.

When they make camp, he makes no pretense of anything, is blatant in his desire. He builds a fire, gingerly but quickly, throws down his bedroll and reaches for her without hesitation. She allows him to embrace her, sets her arms delicately about his tapered waist and feels the strength in him, the tautness of his muscles against her own soft curves. His mouth is not as cruel as she remembers, but just as hungry, and she surrenders to it.

He strips her with a ruthless efficiency, rough hands lingering no longer than necessary, but once she’s bare he looks at her with intensity that burns as bright as the fire he built. She feels the heat of it, and the heat of her own embarrassment, but the naked lust in his gaze fills her with a rare and heady sense of power. His hands tremble as he touches her, fingers digging too hard into her soft skin, and she makes no protest. She wants the imprint of his hands all over her body, wants the indisputable marks as a sign of the vow he’s made to her, and what she’s sacrificed to obtain it.

Finally, he lays her down and covers her with his own fully clothed form. She can’t help but wonder if he’s ashamed of his appearance, or his desire, since he refuses to strip himself. But maybe he’s simply impatient. He sucks and bites at her throat and her nipples, grasps her delicate flesh hard enough to bruise, touches her roughly between her legs and it’s all uncomfortable bordering on painful but she doesn’t fight.

“It’s going to hurt, little bird,” he tells her, his voice hoarse, and she is unsurprised. She’s felt his manhood, after all, knows the size of it, and anyway she’s always been told it would. It’s supposed to. “I can’t go slow.”

He pushes himself into her in one swift stroke and she cries out, feeling as though she’s being split apart. Both of his hands are buried in her hair and he’s panting, shaking in her arms as he tries to hold himself still. “I can’t, I can’t,” he gasps. “I’ve wanted you so much for so long.”

If not for the pain, she thinks she would smile. The whole situation is fairly unpleasant but really it’s such a romantic thing to say. Like from a song. She strokes his hair away from his disfigured face, trails her fingertips over his burns, and he thrusts deep and hard just a few times before he stills and she can feel a rush of liquid heat at her core. It’s quick and she’s grateful, but he recovers just as quickly and takes her twice more before finally giving in to exhaustion, cradling her against him.

It’s not so bad, she thinks, as she drifts off to sleep. He’s warm and so, so strong, and she feels sore but so, so safe. It’s worth it.

 

**III**

She awakens to his touch, his lips on the nape of her neck, his body solid against her, one hand stroking her belly, the other guiding himself inside of her from behind. Even in her drowsy state she’s shocked by this, didn’t realize it was possible. He feels bigger this way – she didn’t realize that was possible either – and it hurts again, still, but she tries to stay relaxed in his arms. He mumbles brokenly that she’s _so tight_ , which she assumes is good based on the way he says it, although considering the pain she rather wishes she weren’t.

His mouth close to her ear, he whispers to her as he moves deep within her. He tells her she’s perfect – she quite likes that – and he can’t believe she’s his. He tells her he’ll always take care of her and make her so happy. He recites her name over and over, like a litany or prayer, and Sansa feels… Awkward. It’s almost as if he doesn’t understand the exchange they’re making, and it confuses her.

The Hound tells her he can’t wait to give her his child, can’t wait to see her swell with his seed, then fills her with it, and she realizes that there must have been a miscommunication somewhere but she cannot for the life of her think where.

 

**IV**

The sept is small and poorly appointed, with only little clay figurines to honor each god, and no glass stained or otherwise in the windows, merely shutters. She looks at him apprehensively.

“I know it’s not what you’d imagined,” he says, and it’s an apology. “But this is just for now. Once you’re home and safe we can have a real wedding with all the frills you want, and proper cloaks. We could even do it in a godswood, makes no difference to me.”

Again, she’s overwhelmed by the sense that something has gone terribly wrong somehow but there is no apparent way to correct it. She realized days before that he’d taken her willingness to leave with him as a sign of tender feelings for him. There is no way to tell him it wasn’t, that she was merely desperate, at least not without wounding him deeply and possibly driving her protector away.

She needs him. And really, in the end, what does it matter? Without her maidenhead she is not like to make a good political match, and compared to the monster she was meant to marry he’s practically the Knight of Flowers. Her escape is costing more than she expected, but it’s a price she has no choice but to pay.

So she tells him she doesn’t care about anything except being his wife, and he somehow believes her even though she’s never been a good liar. They stand before the septon and are joined in the light of the Seven, and she lies again when she pledges her love to him. But she must be getting better at it because he believes that one too.


	2. Parts V - VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your positive reactions to this story! It's very exciting and makes me so happy :D And as always a special thanks to Lady Cyprus, the best beta a squid could ask for <3
> 
> Please note: this chapter contains not-very-explicit descriptions of rough but consensual sex. Also please note: this chapter owes a tremendous debt, thematically, to a fic scrap by redcandle17.

**V**

They continue their flight northward, and things go as planned at first. The Hound keeps her as safe as he promised, killing those who pose even the slightest threat to her with satisfying brutality. Whatever softness he might show her, he is hard and unyielding when facing her enemies, and it is all she could have wanted. Sansa fulfills her end of the bargain as well, submitting to him whenever he desires her, once daily at least and often more.

She balks only once, the first time he reaches for her with blood on his hands, but the way she flinches seems to upset him so that she regrets it immediately. For all that she’s his wife, he could still leave her alone and unprotected if she displeases him. So she repents, and makes amends by reaching for him instead.  

He likes that, she can tell, likes the way she pulls him close and holds him, likes the way she unlaces his breeches and takes him, so hard and hot, in her hands. She presses her mouth to his, the first time she’s taken a kiss instead of allowing one, and he gasps against her lips, guiding her fingers up and down his throbbing length and making animalistic sounds deep in the back of his throat. For a moment she wonders if she might finish him this way but he stops her, setting her away from him to catch his breath.

He inhales deeply, repeatedly, then takes her into his arms, carries her to their bedrolls – always side by side, now – and somehow she finds herself on top of him, sinking down onto him. It’s very different from what she’s used to. He fills her even more fully this way but she is in control of the pace, the depth, and for the first time since the intrusion of his body into her own has stopped hurting she finds their relations something other than tedious. It feels good, actively good. She rocks herself against him for the longest time, feeling herself pulse around his cock, chasing something just beyond her reach. 

He watches her avidly with wide silver eyes, mesmerized by her breasts bouncing above him until he finally sits up slightly and takes a stiff nipple in his mouth. As he licks and sucks at it she gasps because that feels actively good too, bright sparks of pleasure catching fire under her skin. His bloodied hands are at her hips, digging hard into her flesh and leaving gruesome prints, and she doesn’t mind even when he seizes control, holds her down and thrusts up into her while dragging his lips from her nipple to her throat.

Murmuring against the crook of her neck, he repeats her name over and over, practically sobbing it. She gasps out his name in return then regrets it because that single word brings it all to an end. He comes with a groan, cursing indiscriminately, and whatever elusive thing she was chasing outruns her for good. But he holds her close, and strokes her bare back, and tells her she’s _bloody glorious_ , and that’s almost as good as catching it.

 

**VI**

The Red Wedding changes everything and nothing at all. Everything because reaching her family had been her only goal and now she has none, nothing because even if her family were still alive she would still belong with and to her husband. She knows he must feel some sense of relief over not having to face the King in the North but he gives no indication of this and she is grateful.

She is also grateful for the efficient way he slits the throat of the Frey man who spread the news so delightedly. Generally she does not like to watch people die, even when he makes them die for her, but just this once she enjoys the death throes.

Sansa cries. She cries so long and so hard she wonders if she might make herself sick with it. The Hound worries she might, she’s sure, but he says nothing and merely holds her. It’s clear he’s at a loss, uncertain of how to console her. In the two months since fleeing King’s Landing, it is the first night he doesn’t try to pull her under him. He abstains to be kind in his own way she knows but almost wishes he would not. It hurts too much to think and she wishes he would distract her.

She shows him this as best she can, embracing him and lifting her face to his, and she can see the relief in his expression as he lowers his mouth to meet hers because touching her, taking her, is something he knows how to do, unlike providing comfort. Still, he tries to be gentle and she wants none of it. Her teeth sink into his lips and her nails dig into his flesh until he finally snaps, clamping his fingers around her wrists like manacles, holding her down with all his strength and pounding into her again and again.

He’s rough and she likes it, likes that he’s the only thing she can feel. When he demands to know how she likes being fucked so hard, she begs him to fuck her harder. When he obliges, when it hurts, she wraps her legs around his narrow waist and loses herself in the pain. She likes that too, likes that the sensation is merely physical, likes that her anguished mind is overwhelmed and silenced by it.

Later, from the way he broods into the night, she thinks he regrets it. But she doesn’t. She drops gratefully into an exhausted sleep while he keeps watch, staring darkly through the flames of the fire he lit for her even though he hates it.


	3. Part VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your kind comments! I'm really blown away by the response to this story; I was SO SURE people would scoff at it. Goes to show how much I know...
> 
> Again and as always, all glory be to Lady Cyprus! Also to redcandle17, whose awesome fic scrap inspired this story.

**VII**

She bears bruises around her wrists and throat for days, and as long as she does he will not take her. It doesn’t bother her at first; he still lies next to her, still holds her if she’s cold or if she cries, and she doesn’t miss the rest of it, certainly. Until suddenly she realizes she does. Not the act itself, although she doesn’t mind it much anymore, but the security of knowing that as long as she upheld her end of their deal, he’d uphold his. 

Her safety, her existence, relies on his desire for her, and if that desire is extinguished… She has nothing, and she knows it. She’s afraid, and almost grateful for it, as her fear for herself helps dull the pain of loss. But it’s a pain of its own, and one she wishes not to suffer.

Finally, the fourth night, she turns in his arms to face him. Their fire has burned down to nothing but embers, just enough to cast light on the ridges of his scars, just enough to be too little to chase away the shadows that play in the cracks between. His good side is illuminated too, and she thinks – not for the first time – that even without his disfigurement he’d never have been handsome. Still, she does not look away. She’s learned well enough not to, if she wants him happy with her.

His eyes are closed but she does not think he’s sleeping; his breath isn’t regular enough for that to be the case. She thinks he must know she’s looking at him, must have felt her shift against him. Carefully, she places her hand on his damaged cheek, feeling the thick texture beneath her fingers. He likes it when she does this, though she can’t imagine why. He’s told her his scars feel nothing. Yet they must feel _something_ , because his eyes open slowly at her touch.

They used to frighten her so, or rather the rage in them did, but now the rage has… Not lessened, but been redirected. It rarely focuses on her, now, but he wields it mercilessly against her enemies such that she could almost call it an ally, such that she cannot be afraid of it. Now the grey of his eyes reminds her of her father, her sister, and perhaps they’re all she’ll ever have to remember her family.

“Little bird?” he murmurs, and she lets her hand drift from his cheek to his hair, threads her fingers through it. 

“Have I displeased you, my lord?” she asks softly, and almost smiles to see the flash of exasperation at her address. He’d only protested it once after they’d been joined in marriage; he’d told her he was no lord, and she’d retorted that he was now her lord husband, and he’d been silent. His exasperation is her victory, even now.

“Why would you think that?” His voice is both surprised and confused, and now _she_ is exasperated. Why would she not? But he doesn’t understand, she supposes.

“It’s been several days since we’ve… Since you’ve…” She searches for a delicate way to phrase what she means to say. “Requested your husbandly rights” is what she settles for, and even that much makes her blush.

His curious expression shutters. “You’ve not displeased me.”

She allows a small smile to form now. “No?” She trails her hand down through his dark hair to his shoulder, then wraps her arm around him.

“No,” he bites out, and she can see the muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenches his teeth. It’s impossible to tell if he’s answering her question or rebuffing her advance. She rather thinks the latter, his tone something like a door slamming shut.

“Then why –” 

“What does it matter? Never tell me you miss it.” He sounds angry, the way he used to, the way he hasn’t in so long. 

“I miss it,” she lies. She thinks she lies. There is a slight flicker of expression across his face, enough so that she knows he’s uncertain now, and even angrier for it.

“Why?” he challenges, and suddenly the palm of his large hand is resting on her throat. “You miss the way I held you down, the way I choked you? You want to be hurt?”

She places her own hand on top of his, stroking his knuckles softly. “I did then. You helped me to forget. It was kind.” 

He laughs with a bitterness she hasn’t realized was gone until just now that it’s returned. “Kind, yes. Tell me, in all the nights you’ve spread your legs for me, have I ever once pleased you?”

“I don’t understand,” she says after a moment. “It pleases me to please you. I do please you, don’t I?” she adds, hesitantly. She must, she _must_. Surely he’d not reach for her so often if she didn’t? But then he hasn’t reached for her in long enough to worry her…

“You do,” he says, almost grudgingly. “Might be I’d like to do the same, if I knew how.”

She isn’t quite sure what to say. There are parts of their time together that she minds less than others. And there was the one instance where she was almost reaching for something… But should she say so? He seems angry still, but now she realizes his anger is self-directed. He’s angry at himself for hurting her, and for not being able to make her feel whatever it is he feels that makes him want to have her so often.

Perhaps if she can convince him he does make her feel it, he’ll forget this anger, and things can be as they were.

She bites her lip in the way she knows he finds arousing and lowers her eyes modestly. “I like it when you kiss me,” she whispers. “Anywhere, not just my lips. And I like it when you… Touch me… Softly, and for awhile, before… Anywhere, my lord. I… like your hands on me.” 

For a moment, she’s surprised to realize her words are truth. Those things are nice. She wouldn’t mind more of them. 

He seems surprised as well, and his eyes are suddenly deep and vulnerable. “Do you?”

She looks up at him and allows herself a shy smile. “Yes. Even before, in King’s Landing… You surprised me, always so gentle.”

“Not always,” he mutters darkly, stroking her bruised throat.

“Always when I needed you to be.”

“Stupid little bird,” he says.

“Smart enough to fly away with you,” she teases, then adds “my love,” because she knows he likes it. She says it rarely, it being a lie of the greatest magnitude and she being a terrible liar, but he likes to hear it anyway. She even thinks he believes it. Why would he want to hear it otherwise?

He kisses her, and he must have been listening because suddenly he’s slow and gentle, his tongue exploring her softly, sliding against her own. His hands are the same, careful, so careful, as he slips them inside her bodice and caresses her breasts, teases her nipples with his thumbs. It’s… Nice, very nice, and she can feel herself coming alive under his touch. 

His mouth trails from her own to her collarbone, whispering little kisses to the crook of her neck, and she sighs as something kindles within her. “You had me on your lap once, do you remember?” she murmurs, and can feel him nodding against her as he lowers his head to the swell of her cleavage above her dress. “It felt… With my legs around you, I…”

“You liked it?” he asks.

“Yes. I… Very much, yes.”

That seems to be all he needs to hear, and before she understands what he means to do he has her sitting up, one hand under her skirts, one unlacing his breeches, and then she’s sinking down onto him, just the way she remembers. It’s a little uncomfortable, honestly, as he seems to have missed the part about touching her “for awhile” and she isn’t truly ready, but she hides it. He wants to bring her pleasure; it’s only necessary that he _believe_ he has.

She wraps her legs around him, forcing him even deeper, and it’s uncomfortable but again she’s in control and she likes that. With a soft sigh she says “I missed this. I missed you.”

He groans, his arms tightening around her waist. “Gods, little bird… It’s been torture sleeping so close and not touching you.”

“Yes,” she agrees, rocking against him, and it isn’t uncomfortable anymore, it’s very nice. He’s panting beneath her, looking up at her, clenching his jaw.

“I don’t… It’s been too long, I can’t… For much longer,” he gasps, and she pulls him ever closer.

“Don’t stop,” she says, because she isn’t making him believe anymore, she’s a believer herself; she can feel that indefinable thing again, that hint of pleasure to come, and the tighter she holds him and the more he fills her, the nearer it draws.

“You feel so good.” His voice breaks, and his hands are on her hips now, holding her down and setting his own rhythm. He’s too close, she knows, and whatever she’s reaching for isn’t close enough, but _this_ is close enough for him, surely? She imagines gasping loudly, crying out, pretending… But she pretends so much already. And maybe if she tells the truth, that it felt nice and she knows it could feel nicer, he’ll want to try again and again. Each time they join, their pact is sealed anew, and if they keep trying it’s all to the good for her.

“Sandor,” she whispers, the way she knows he likes. “Come inside me.”

He does – he always does, when she says his name just so – and it’s enough for her to know he’s pleased. Besides, she knows the Hound’s nature; he cannot resist a challenge, and bringing her to her pleasure is one. She knows he won’t leave her alone now, not at night and not ever, or at least not until he’s succeeded in his goal. She strokes his face and smiles down at him, enjoying his dazed expression and ignoring his scars. He’s happy and she’s safe again. For now.


	4. Parts VIII - X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Lady Cyprus is still awesome <3 Just, like, FYI.

**VIII**

In the nights that follow he teaches himself to be careful of her. He has never been rough, at least not unless she wanted him to be, but she imagines he never fully appreciated just how strong he is compared to her, either. Now he gentles his mouth, his hands, the way he moves inside her, and while the bliss he always achieves himself remains stubbornly out of her reach, she begins to appreciate his attentions in her own way. His soft caresses, his breath in her hair, his half-burned lips on hers, these are things she can enjoy, things she does enjoy, but there is more. Things she doesn’t know if he feels but which she feels and clings to.

It touches her somehow, the closeness of the act, the feeling that for however brief a time, as long as he fills her, she is not alone. Joffrey’s tortures in King’s Landing had been hard enough to bear, but the loneliness, the isolation… Those had been crushing. Now, when she twines her arms about his neck and feels his weight pressing her into the ground, now when they are joined, she is with him and he is with her and it’s _nice_ , knowing that, feeling it so viscerally.

Beyond that, it’s nice bringing him such joy through something so simple. When he groans her name, when he spills himself inside her, when he lies spent in her arms, she strokes his hair and feels a vicarious rush of pleasure knowing he is pleased. And when he tells her how beautiful she is, when he tells her how good she makes him feel, there is a warm glow of pride in her chest. It is then that she believes he really does love her, as much as a man like him can love anyone.

It isn’t for who she is, of course. She learned in the Red Keep that life is not a song and girls who are born of great and noble houses, born of a line of ancient kings, are only loved for themselves in those tales he used to scorn her for believing. But he at least wants _her_ , even if only to possess her body and her beauty, and those things are a part of her. Not what truly makes her herself, but closer to it than all the northern lands and power that make up her claim. Those belong to whoever manages to bear the name of Stark and survive. With Robb and all her trueborn brothers dead her husband could hold Winterfell and the North through her but he has never mentioned it, has probably never even thought of it. He would rather hold her, just her, instead.

For that alone she finds it easier and easier to give herself to him.

 

**IX**

They travel carefully through the war-ravaged land, the countryside near barren and picked clean to the bones, and once their provisions are gone they are hungry. Sandor is an accomplished hunter but there is little to accomplish when there is little to hunt. Large game is impossible to find and even smaller creatures that might be caught in snares, rabbits and squirrels and the like, are rare. 

As the gnawing thing that is now the only thing filling their bellies grows and snarls and growls, he is increasingly bitter and withdrawn.

“Are you regretting the choice you made now, girl?” he demands one night after finding all of his carefully laid snares empty. It is unnerving, to hear the Hound she remembers speaking with Sandor’s lips. “Are you remembering the feasts in King’s Landing and longing for your featherbed in the Keep? I only promised to keep you safe, not keep you fed.”

Lying is exhausting and she’s exhausted already, too exhausted even to feel anger, so she tells him the truth plainly. She tells him that she’d rather starve to death in a forest with him than stuff herself at Joffrey’s table. She means it, and he knows it, and he likes it, she can tell.

That night he takes her roughly, as he hasn’t in so long, and she doesn’t protest. She understands now what she didn’t before, that this act between them can be many different things and tonight it is a way for him to pour his frustration into her. With every flex of his hips, every thrust of his hard cock inside her, she knows he’s trying to force away whatever thoughts have plagued him, whatever fears he has.

He fears losing her, she realizes as he moves almost brutally within her. As much as she knows her safety depends on his desire for her – or love of her, if it is that – he fears her supposed love of him is conditional. She thinks to herself that if she did love him, she would _love_ him, completely and fully for everything that he is and with no conditions, none. _If_. But she is his wife, and that is not conditional either.

Again, she tells the truth. She tangles her fingers in his hair, feels it sliding in her grasp all soaked with sweat, and tells him that she is his, always, that she belongs to him. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and sucks hard at the tender flesh, marking her though there is no need to, pounding into her hard and deep. She tells him that she’ll always take care of him and make him so happy, and she means it, because that has somehow become part of their exchange for her.

She whispers that she’ll give him a family and he likes that, she can tell.

 

**X**

Days later, his bitterness has subsided fully. He is soft and warm towards her again, awkwardly affectionate and passionate by turns the way he was in the beginning, now that his fear is gone. She is glad of it. But in regards to their hunger things have only grown more desperate. They lie entwined in the darkness, stomachs aching and hollow, so aching and so hollow that even touching one another cannot alleviate the feeling, and Sansa hesitantly – finally – brings herself to ask why they’ve done no foraging. With no animals left to eat anything growing wild, she thinks there must be plenty for them to find.

“A poison mushroom or berry will kill you just as sure as a sword or arrow,” he says. “It isn’t safe, not when I can’t tell one kind from the other.” 

She considers being offended by the fact that it doesn’t seem to occur to him that _she_ might know. In fact, she does, having learned about healing herbs and edible plants at the feet of Maester Luwin and Septa Mordane, but she decides not to be hurt by his lack of faith. How would a man like him know what it is ladies like her study, any more than a lady like her would know what it is men like him study?

The fact is, she is shocked he has had no similar training. He’s so capable, seemingly designed to survive in any situation, but then he has spent most of his life in King’s Landing, eating well at the cost of the crown. Perhaps it’s not so surprising after all. 

She does not say that, of course. She doesn’t gloat, either. But the next day she forages for all she’s worth, finding mushrooms and berries and turnips and greens and all manner of food, enough to fill their bellies and more, enough to save. When he looks at her with new respect, she beams and wonders if this is how it feels to be capable, if this is how he feels all the time. 

She wonders if this is how she felt at Winterfell, before. It all seems so long ago that she can hardly remember. But she knows she was respected there. She was considered to be good at things there, things like embroidery and music and singing, and maybe they weren’t useful but they were the things she needed to know. The beatings she endured in the Red Keep were painful and left their marks on her, but she thinks the constant insults to her intelligence might have been more damaging in the end.

There is a voice inside her head now that sounds just like Joffrey and tells her constantly that she is worthless, good for nothing but her claim, unbearably stupid. It doesn’t help that Sandor was once as apt as anyone else to believe that to be true. Even now, he calls her _stupid little bird_ sometimes and she hates it, and sometimes allows it to silence her. But she has also noticed that he rarely talks down to her anymore, and remembers that in King’s Landing he at least tried to advise her and presumably thought she might be intelligent enough to listen. 

With that in mind she chooses not to be hurt by his unflattering expression of shock when she told him she could save them. Still, she must draw a line somewhere. When he directs her to prepare what she’s found for their dinner, _then_ she becomes offended.

Ladies, she tells him severely, have housekeepers and kitchen maids and cooks. They do not cook for themselves.


	5. Part XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for the last chapter, I had three parts but one got kind of long. I decided to write a shorter bit (the one that became IX) and use the part that got out of control for XI. But then I realized it messed with my pacing and we can't have that! Anyway, if you still want to read it, I posted it on my tumblr: http://squidproquo-ink.tumblr.com/post/108685481130/cost-benefit-analysis-deleted-scene-x-v
> 
> It goes between the last parts and this new one, but there's nothing essential in it (or I wouldn't have cut it). For purposes of the story, this scene still happened, just "off-screen".
> 
> As always, thanks to the amazing Lady Cyprus, who loves this chapter <3

**XI**

It is not that they are not being sought; they are, and they have encountered men at arms to remind them of it, but never in numbers enough to trouble them. Or numbers enough to trouble him, anyway. He wields his weapon with an enchanted kind of deadly grace, and by some combination of skill and luck his opponents rarely come close enough to touch him. And never close enough to harm him.

His skill she trusts implicitly, but the luck… Luck is fickle, and she knows it. The relative ease of their journey makes her wary. Together they are too recognizable, and worth too much, to escape the war-torn country unscathed, and yet from King’s Landing almost to the Twins and now back south again they have remained so. With every minor skirmish ending in Sandor’s triumph, Sansa can feel her nerves drawing tighter and tighter. With every sellsword he cuts down so easily, she can feel her anxiety build and grow. It isn’t right, and it cannot last. Their luck has been too good to trust.

They are outside of Darry, near to Saltpans and too near to King’s Landing, when Sandor spots the small company of crimson-cloaked Lannister men. There are 12 at the least, more than they’ve encountered before, and she can tell by the way his focus narrows immediately that it worries him. She doesn’t understand at first, doesn’t fear their numbers. He’s so large and so strong and so fast, and after so many encounters won, it’s hard to imagine him failing no matter the odds.

He disabuses her of that notion immediately, telling her if there was time for them to flee they should but there isn’t. Telling her that she must ride hard on her own while he remains behind to hold them off. She is not particularly brave and hates watching him fight but suddenly hates the thought of _not_ watching him fight, of leaving him behind to fight alone, more.

She grips tight to his arm, feels the heavy muscles tense beneath her hand, and finds herself frightened more by the fear on his face than by the men with weapons fast approaching. She tells him she should stay, tells him he might need her.

“For what?” he demands harshly, and she flinches. “No. The cave from last night is still close. You’ll go back the way we came, wait for me there. But…” he hesitates. “Not too long. If I don’t find you by tomorrow morning you’ll make for Saltpans on your own.”

When she understands what he means, she feels a heavy weight settle in her chest along with a sick sense of panic. “No. No. I won’t go to Saltpans on my own. I won’t go to the cave, either. I’ll stay nearby, find a tree to hide in or –”

“You’ll find a tree?” he scoffs. “And do what with it, little bird, fly into the branches? Never tell me you know how to climb one.”

His sarcastic tone upsets her, but then the sneer on his face fades away. He takes her by the shoulders and pulls her close, expression set and hard but eyes soft as they drink in the sight of her. There is something both tender and solemn in his face, and that frightens her most of all. “Sansa, listen. There are so many of them. If I can’t… I won’t be able to fight if I don’t know you’re safe. Understand?” 

“You said _you_ would keep me safe,” she reminds him, horrified to hear the way her voice shakes. But he had _said_ , and she had believed him.

Nodding, he reaches up to stroke her cheek. “I did and I will. This is part of it, sending you away.” 

“I don’t want to leave you.” Her voice breaks and she is shocked by the pressure behind her eyes, the unexpected heat of tears spilling over and falling.  

His fingers trail down the side of her face, dabbing at them, and he stares at the moisture glistening on his fingertip as though he’s never seen her cry before. “Say that again,” he murmurs as his eyes meet hers, and he looks… Shaken, surprised. And heartbroken.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

With a strangled sound or maybe a curse, he presses his mouth hard to hers. The kiss is chaste but searing, and she can feel the heat in it, the urgency and desperation all in the way his lips move so insistently over hers. He tastes like himself, a taste she’s grown used to and even come to appreciate, and his mouth is seasoned with the salt of her tears. It lasts for moments only before he sets her away, lifts her into the saddle and tells her to go.

Stranger tosses his head when he hands her the reins, but he glares at his horse sternly and somehow Sansa knows the beast will allow her to ride him – little though either of them like it. “Remember, if I don’t come for you by morning…”

“I know.” She hopes he won’t ask her to promise to leave without him, because she’s not certain it’s a promise she can make. She wonders if she should tell him what he must want to hear, tell him she loves him, but she doesn’t want to lie, not now. “Sandor…”

He shakes his head almost imperceptibly at her. She is still trying to choose her words when he slaps Stranger’s rump and the horse bolts just as she supposes he’d intended. The sudden wind rushing past her ears catches at her hair and whips strands around her face leaving her almost blind, but she can see enough to make turning for one last glimpse of him worth the trouble. 

His sword is drawn, his back is straight, his shoulders are impossibly wide. He isn’t watching her ride away.


	6. Parts XII - XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want everyone to know that Lady Cyprus is an absolute saint. She listens to all my nonsense and somehow finds it in her heart not to punch me in the face (through the internet). She is ever and always instrumental in making each chapter shine :)

**XII**

Even if she were good at estimating things like travel time, it’s difficult to judge from the back of a speeding courser. Still, she thinks it can’t be more than half an hour before she finds the cave they’d so recently left. With very little to signal its presence save a small dark hole in a rock face well-concealed by gorse bushes, it’s an ideal place to hide. An ideal place to wait.

She remembers how pleased she’d been the evening before when he’d spotted it, knowing its shelter would allow him to sleep the night through instead of keeping watch. She remembers how he’d held her close and skimmed his hands over her naked body, caressing her gently from head to toe, kissing her neck and back and shoulders. She remembers how careful he can be of her. And then remembering hurts so she stops.

Time passes, though it’s impossible to say how much, and the sliver of sky visible through the cave’s entrance slowly fades away to black. He doesn’t return. She doesn’t know what to do with herself as she waits, much as she doesn’t know what to do with herself if she waits in vain. So she lays a fire she doesn’t light and arranges their medical supplies, such as they are, in case he’s injured when he arrives. If nothing else she knows how to make fine, even stitches, and it won’t be the first time she’s tended to him, when he comes back. 

It’s impossible to say whether she hopes he has need of her skills or hopes he doesn’t. She doesn’t want him hurt, of course not, but hurt is better than… More than hurt. There’s a word for it but she will not use it, not even in her own mind.

The anxiety she feels is strange despite how she needs him. She attributes it almost solely to that fact, though part of her thinks that perhaps she has simply become used to him. That perhaps beyond the safety he provides she might miss him if he doesn’t come back, might miss his fleeting smiles and serious eyes and gentle hands, might miss the feeling of him moving inside her. But then she thinks that perhaps she just doesn’t want to be alone.

 

**XIII**

She isn’t sure when or how, but somehow she does fall asleep, and deeply. There are no nightmares, no dreams, and no fire either so that she wakes up chilled. For a drowsy moment lying in the dark she forgets she’s by herself, wonders why she can’t feel him beside her, but then she remembers, wonders what has woken her and comes fully alert.

There is a noise outside, something terribly close. It sounds like an animal scrabbling, and like something being dragged. Frightened, she feels along the ground for the small dagger she’d found in one of Stranger’s saddlebags. Her shaking fingers brush against the leather sheath and she grips the handle tightly, praying to the old gods and the new that she won’t have to use it since she has no idea how, not really.

“Little bird?” a weak voice calls, and she gasps, flooded by relief and… Something more than relief at the sound.

“Sandor?” she responds, her tone so high and tight and hopeful.

There is no answer, and she knows that he’d tell her she ought to wait, to better judge if it’s some kind of trap, but she can’t bear it and so does not. She crawls to the mouth of the cave and peeks out carefully, searching for him.

He’s lying in the grass near the bushes concealing their shelter, and though it’s still full dark and she can’t see him in any detail she realizes his wounds must be grave. Her heart plummets and tears well unbidden in her eyes when she understands that the scrabbling sounds must have been his hands clawing at the dirt as he dragged himself to her.

For a moment she’s close to hysteria, can feel it building, but knows she can’t lose herself to it, not if she’s going to be any use to him at all. There is a door inside herself that she slams shut, locking all emotion away, one she learned to bar in King’s Landing after her father’s death. It’s been a long time since she’s had cause to close it and the numbness is almost disorienting but she knows it will allow her to do what she has to, for him.

With slow, deliberate steps she approaches and kneels down beside him, and he sighs when she lays her hand on his head. His hair is tangled and matted, sticky with blood, and she doesn’t like that at all.

“Little bird,” he murmurs. “Did I find you?”

“Yes,” she says quietly. “Yes, of course. I knew you would. Can you move at all? We need to get you inside.”

“No point,” he tells her, and the doors so recently closed threaten to fly open, to set all her anguish free. “Just stay here.”

“No.” Her voice is firm and she is proud of the way it doesn’t tremble. “Come inside, there’s a fire waiting to be lit and all the supplies necessary to tend to your wounds. You made it this far. You can’t give up at my feet.” 

“Stubborn.”

“Yes.”

“Still can’t move,” he mutters finally. “Fetch what you need, light a fire here.”

“Don’t go,” she whispers. “Please don’t.”


	7. Parts XIV - XVII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been cruel to you, and you've all be so patient, so I'm posting this earlier than I planned. As always, much thanks to Lady Cyprus for her tireless efforts on my behalf <3
> 
> And thanks to you for all your kind/despairing/threatening comments on the last chapter :D I've yet to go through and respond to most of them but I will, I promise. Your feedback is so motivating!
> 
> Please note: this chapter contains semi-explicit gore, but considering you're all Game of Thrones/ASOIAF fans you probably won't even notice it.

**XIV**

He thinks his body is ugly, she knows, though he’s never said so. He doesn’t need to. The fact that he’ll gladly strip her to her skin and look at her naked body for hours while always keeping himself fully clothed says enough. But in the glimpses she’s had of him she’s seen that he’s a patchwork of scars, some thick and heavy, some slender and pale and almost beautiful, a history of violence carved like calligraphy into his skin with blades and arrowheads. She has imagined, sometimes, the wounds he must have suffered, imagined how he received them.

She has never imagined this, could never have imagined this. He’d once called himself a butcher and claimed those he killed were merely meat but she’d never understood, not until now. Never known how right he was. He is stabbed and slashed and sliced, oozing blood, muscle and bone exposed. The raw red flesh showing through his cuts looks no different from raw beef or venison. She could pull his skin off as he’d shown her once with a rabbit, pull it off and see not a human but a dead animal. Meat for the butcher. 

“Not such a pretty sight for a pretty little bird,” he says, voice heavy and exhausted from the effort of rolling over for her, as she recoils.

Turning her face away, she takes several deep, slow breaths. The scent of blood is sharp in her nose and the stickiness of it is hot on her hands. But she breathes. _There is a door_ , she reminds herself. _Keep it barred._ He’s weak and in pain and she knows the only thing worse for him than his own suffering is allowing her to see it, allowing her to suffer as well. She looks back at him, down into his face. It’s coated with blood too, the same as it had been the night he’d taken her away, and she remembers looking at him then, thinking he was one of the ugliest men she’d ever seen. 

He still is, really, but she strokes his hair back away from his scars anyway. “Pretty enough when I thought I might not see you again.”

There’s no response from him other than the slightest of smiles, so she bends herself to her tasks, boils wine, fires her needles. She cleans the blood away from the worst of the wounds: a deep gouge in his shoulder, a slash in his belly, a small hole through and through his thigh that has not clotted. Both his leg and his left arm are bent at odd angles and she knows they must be broken but setting them isn’t her priority just now. Instead she focuses on his thigh, pries the edges of the puncture open as much as she can without ripping it and pours the boiled wine in slowly, hoping it will flow deep inside to speed healing.

Sandor screams, and if her work hurts him half as much as his sounds of agony hurt her she knows the pain must be intense. When he passes out she thinks it’s a mercy for him, but for her… There’s a little voice inside her head whispering unhelpfully that he might not wake again.

He does at some point, thankfully, though she’s stitching up his shoulder with every ounce of her skill and so doesn’t see his eyes open. But she feels him looking at her and looks up in return. His face is ashen and drawn, even more gaunt than usual, bloodless and pale as any highborn lady.

“Will you miss me, Sansa?” he asks quietly, so quietly she would think she’d imagined it if not for having seen his lips twitch and form the words. “Even a little?”

Anger floods her with the strength of a dammed river released. All she can think is that she’s done everything he’s ever asked of her. Fled with him, lain with him, married him, regardless of what she wanted because he wanted it of her. Tonight alone she’s faced his wounds, kept her panic in check, stitched her fingers to the bone, all to save him, and that he should still think he is allowed to die, allowed to leave her alone… She could be frightened but she’s not. She’s not angry, either. She’s furious.

“No,” she tells him, cruelly perhaps, and there’s a growl in her voice, a wolf or a hound inside speaking through her. He flinches away from her words as she continues ruthlessly. “I won’t miss you because you’re not going anywhere. _Anywhere,_ do you hear me? We have an _agreement_. I have more than upheld my end of the bargain and gods help me you will uphold yours.”

 

**XV**

The fever comes. He burns. He begs for her to kill him. She bathes his face with cool water and tells him he doesn’t want to die, not really.

He says she can’t know that.

 

**XVI**

It is two weeks before the fever fully breaks. Sansa is sitting near the mouth of the cave working embroidery into a handkerchief when she hears a harsh croaking sound from within, and immediately she is on her feet. He’s cried out in his delirium before but this sounds different somehow, less distant, more real.

“Sandor?” She approaches slowly and sits beside him, laying the back of her hand across his forehead and sighing with relief to find it finally cool to the touch. “Are you awake?”

He asks for water in a desiccated voice that crackles like dry leaves, and she fetches it for him, slides her arm under his neck to help lift him so that he can swallow the liquid instead of choking on it. In his desperation she knows he’d drain the skin if he could, but she tells him he must go slowly, and when she thinks he’s had enough she tells him so, pulls the skin away.

He swallows the last mouthful and lies back heavily, staring up at her with bleary eyes. “Damn the gods,” he mutters thickly, “and damn you too, for letting me drink so much. Seven hells but my head hurts!”

She laughs; she can’t help it. He looks so sincere, so disgruntled, and the thought that he feels the aftereffects of a near-fatal beating combined with a near-fatal fever as nothing more than wine-sickness… He is a strange man, her husband.

“The only wine you’ve had has been boiled to clean your wounds,” she tells him gently, trailing her fingers down the side of his face. “Do you remember anything?”

“Some.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” she asks. “You sent me away so I never saw… But you survived somehow, you escaped.” 

“Not now,” he murmurs, covering her hand with his own. “Not with this pounding in my head. No point in speaking of dead men.”

“I’m pleased you’re not one.”

“Told the buggering Stranger if I died my wife would kill me.” The unburnt corner of his mouth tilts up in a barely-smile, too exhausted to widen fully. 

She laughs again, and smiles, and touches her lips very softly to his. He’ll be alright, she knows that finally, and she’s gladder of it than she’d expected. She’s grateful he’s still with her. It’s nice, she thinks, to be able to speak with him, to not wonder if she’ll ever be able to again.

 

**XVII**

“There were 12 of them, more or less,” Sandor tells her when he’s recovered more fully. They’re sitting near the fire at the cave’s entrance, eating whatever she’s been able to scavenge, and she nods at him, urges him to continue. “Bloody fools, so secure in their advantage, so many to one. It’s different, when _I’m_ the one. I killed them all before they could kill me, just like any other fight. Longer maybe. Wasn’t much to it.” 

“I imagine with 12 men there was more than that to it,” she chides. “I was afraid… I didn’t know… And you said there were so many…”

He shrugs. “They saw you, riding away. Your hair flying behind. Thought it wise to taunt me with it, tell me they’d find you and fuck you once I fell. So I didn’t fall.”


	8. Part XVIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Screw the Superbowl, have some smut :)
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kind words on the last chapter! As always, Lady Cyprus is a rock star <3 This chapter is heavily influenced by "Bliss" by the_moonmoth.

**XVIII**

Later that night they lie nestled together on their sides with only their thin bedrolls separating them from the uneven ground. She remembers how her entire body would hurt in the morning when they first left King’s Landing, not just from his attentions but from sleeping on such a hard surface, so unlike her silken featherbed in the Red Keep. Those days are long passed, now; she thinks she could sleep anywhere, on anything, if she had to.

It’s familiar and comforting, lying with him in the dark. He likes to wrap his arm around her waist, bury his face in the crook of her neck and stroke her hair, comb through it with his fingers. It’s nice, the occasional brush of his callused skin against her ear, his warm breath gentle on her throat. 

She feels a confusing heat deep in her belly as he touches her in a way she usually finds soothing, something she’s previously felt only in the midst of their coupling. He’s usually well inside her by the time her body decides she wants him there, but she’s suddenly hollow and aching between her legs, desperate to feel him that way. It’s futile, she knows. He’s almost fully recovered but still cannot put too much weight on his broken leg or arm, which will take far longer to heal than any of his wounds.

It surprises her how disappointed she is by that.

But then his hand glides from her hair to her collarbone, from her collarbone to her breast, and suddenly he’s cupping and squeezing her flesh as she moans. His lips press to her throbbing pulse and he sucks at it carefully, scraping over it with his teeth before soothing the hurt with a flick of his tongue.

She moves back against him and gasps at the feel of his hard cock between them, and that seems to be all the encouragement he needs to abandon her breast and grasp the hem of her shift, pulling it up around her waist. He then trails his way back down, fingers delving between her already-parted thighs with clear intent.

Anticipation and sensation make her breathless, far too breathless to ask if this is truly a wise idea. Surely with his leg… And his arm… And his healing wounds… And… But it’s impossible to concentrate on such concerns, not when he’s touching her the way he is, and even if she could she wouldn’t want to. She wants this, his hands on her, every touch filling her with longing for more.

He finds her opening and groans into her ear, murmuring that she’s _so wet_ with some surprise. Sansa blushes at her own wantonness but he seems to revel in it, teasing her by caressing near her entrance but not quite pushing inside.

As he tortures her this way, his fingers move easily through her slick folds until suddenly they ghost over something that sends an almost unbearable bolt of pleasure like lightning deep into her core. She cries out, partially with shock and partially because she can’t _not_ , and hears Sandor’s breath hitch behind her. He strokes her there again and again, moans just as she does, and she realizes that this must be the path leading to that elusive feeling she’s been aware exists but has never managed to search out. This must be what he feels when he’s inside her, what makes him want her so frequently and with such intensity.

Feeling it now, she can’t say she blames him. 

His fingers keep working her, rubbing her, lifting her higher and higher, and it feels better than anything she’s ever imagined but also empty too. She knows that with his help she can catch the ecstasy she’s chasing, and she wants to, but not like this, not alone. 

“Stop,” she moans, her voice rasping nearly as much as his is wont to do. “Sandor, please… Stop, don’t… I want you inside me, I want to feel you, please –”

He stills his movements, breathing heavily, and mumbles something she can’t quite understand but which is almost certainly “Fuck”. The warmth of his hand leaves her for a moment and she can feel him tugging – frantic, one-handed – at his laces, as anxious to free himself as she is for him to be freed. Her heart is racing, every muscle in her body coiled so tight, so tight that she almost sobs when she feels his large palm on her leg. He lifts it gently to pull it over his own, then adjusts himself behind her to place himself at her opening. 

With the slightest hint of pressure he slides into her, and she realizes she must be wetter than she’s ever been because he’s never filled her so easily before. She’s so sensitive that it almost hurts but in the most exquisite way, and even aside from the incredible heightened pleasure she feels at his touch, she has missed this, being so close to him, feeling him so deep inside. It’s a strange thought, and one she doesn’t have time for because he is buried fully within her, panting into her hair and shaking.

“Gods, touch me, please, just move, I need –” she trails off into a thick moan as he pulls back and pushes in, thrusting gently even as his fingers return to that place between her legs that has made her so desperate for him. He asks her anxiously if it’s good, begs her to tell him that it’s good, but she is beyond words, incoherent, capable only of animal sounds and syllables. Within moments she is sighing out her pleasure, gasping as the tight knots he’s managed to tie in every muscle of her body are suddenly undone and it is only his body joined to hers that keeps her from falling apart.

He moans her name when he feels her tighten around him, a tone almost of awe in his harsh voice, and then she can feel him shuddering against her, pulsing within her. The heat of his release only serves to intensify her own until she doesn’t think she can stand it for another second, or until she wants it to last forever. 

It doesn’t, of course, which is just as well because if she could think at all she’d probably think it a miracle she even survived such overwhelming bliss. In all her life she’s never felt anything like it, never even imagined anything like it. Her mind is utterly blank save for one shocked thought: _No wonder_.

“Gods,” she murmurs when her lungs can finally fill with enough air for speech. “I used to think once a day was excessive… Now I admire your restraint.”

“You were… Pleased?” he asks, breathless, voice somehow both unbearably smug and touchingly vulnerable.

“Yes,” she answers fervently. “Gods yes.”

“It pleases me to please you, little bird.”

She is too exhausted to laugh so she smiles.


	9. Parts XIX - XXI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me for not updating sooner! Real life gets in the way sometimes, as you know. But never fear, I have several more chapters finished and several more to write. I estimate approximately another 5k words to finish the story off. 
> 
> Also, please forgive me for not responding to each comment on the last chapter! I usually try to but again, it's the whole real life thing :( I'll go through as soon as I can. Just know that your comments are very motivating and inspirational, and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts <3
> 
> Lady Cyprus puts up with way too much of my nonsense. She is the very best!!!

**XIX**

Eventually he is well enough to leave the cave and they continue their journey with even more caution. It serves them well, allowing them to arrive in Saltpans and book passage across the Narrow Sea without incident.

Their crossing is blissfully uneventful, each day golden and clear with the water calm and not a single hint of storms on the horizon. They often spend the daylight hours together on the deck of the ship with his strong arms around her waist, holding her steady as she leans over the rails to catch glimpses of sea creatures in the waves. Sometimes he lifts her and holds her out over the water, and then she feels like the little bird he has named her, feels like she’s flying. It’s easy to feel free when she knows he would never let her fall.

The nights are even better, a revelation for her and she suspects for him as well. It is almost impossible to believe that she used to lie on her back and let her mind wander as he took her, bored and wishing vaguely for it to be over so she could sleep. Even the more recent days of detached enjoyment, of finding pleasure in his pleasure, of finding satisfaction in the feeling of closeness his body moving inside hers brought, seem so long ago. They are as distant as King’s Landing, as distant as the Inn at the Crossroads.

The memory of those ancient nights is overwhelmed by the immediacy of her desire for him. Now that he knows just where to touch her, every casual brush of his fingers and glance of his molten silver eyes makes her body hum with awareness, drawn tight like a bow, and when he touches her with intent… It’s almost unbelievable, how good he can make her feel now, how willing he is to do it, how often. There are some days they don’t even bother to leave their cabin, too caught up in one another to care about the outside world 

It is not even solely about pleasing each other, though there is plenty enough (yet never enough) of that. But in the time they’ve been married she’s come to know he’s an intelligent man, a principled one, and far more of a hopeless romantic than she could ever be. He tells her sometimes how he’s wanted her since he first laid eyes on her, how it hurt him to see Joffrey hurt her, how no one will ever hurt her again – and he has proven that, over and over. But he also tells her of his childhood, the good and bad, and of his time serving the Lannisters, the good and bad.  And he listens so attentively to her, holds her when she speaks of her family until she can manage it without tears.

In a strange way he reminds her of her father, both of them men of honor, though a different kind of honor for each. Her father disliked him in life she knows but she thinks that if he is somehow watching them he is perhaps not displeased. For her own part, she is quite content.

 

**XX**

Their initial plan is to journey to Braavos, the first port on their ship’s travels, but in the end they sail even farther, deciding to remain on the merchant vessel until it docks in Myr. He tells her that it will be strange and beautiful and exotic… And satisfyingly distant from Westeros. He tells her solemnly that it ought to be safe. She tells him everywhere is safe, though he doesn’t seem to understand her meaning.

The night before they make port, he holds her close in their narrow cot, whispering to her of the life they’ll have in Essos. She’d not given much thought to how they’d live, too caught up in escaping, and though she’d known he was wealthy thanks to his many tournament championships, she also knows he didn’t bring anything like 40,000 gold dragons with him when they fled. If she’d thought about it at all, she’d have assumed he would sell his sword, perhaps join a mercenary company, and she would learn to keep a small cottage with few or no servants.

He tells her about the sophisticated banks of Essos, about the way he can access his gold in any Free City. He’ll buy her a manse to outshine the Red Keep, he says, jewels and gowns to rival even the ones she’d worn in King’s Landing. After months of traveling, dirty and desperate, she can’t say the idea doesn’t enthrall her. She has learned with him that she is stronger than she thought, more adept than she thought, that she can endure deprivation and rain and cold, that she can sleep on the hard ground and pay it no mind. It is a life she is capable of living but not one she was raised for, nor one she wants in truth, and she is grateful that he does not seem to want it for her either.

Myr is everything he has promised, and he keeps all the others, too. He brings her one day to a sprawling mansion perched on a cliff overlooking the Sea of Myrth, somewhat distant from the city itself. Even apart from the breathtaking view, the compound is beautiful in the way of the buildings of Essos, made of a bright white stone that sparkles under the foreign sun. It is adorned with stately columns and bright fabrics, airy and open with peaceful courtyards and extensive gardens, and it is perfect. He tells her if it pleases her then it belongs to her, and she tells him it will please her better if it belongs to them both.

He goes into the city often and returns with gifts, lengths of intricate Myrish lace, bolts of silk finer than even the southron court could offer, slippers and gloves of softest kid. There are jewels, too, but nothing gaudy or overwrought, nothing like the huge golden Lannister pendant Joffrey once gave her. Instead there is a necklace of little birds with sapphire eyes joined to one another with tiny pearls, delicate earrings shaped like winter roses set with opals, a flawlessly detailed direwolf pin flashing with diamonds. When she pouts that she has nothing to represent his sigil or the colors of his house, he brings her a bracelet with three onyx dog charms wearing topaz collars.

Beyond the luxuries he lavishes upon her, luxuries she would be ashamed to accept for fear of seeming greedy if he didn’t so clearly love giving them, he is mindful of the practicalities as well. He hires a household garrison of 50 men and trains them himself. Between his strength and skill, the guards and the thick stone walls of their home she is as safe as she possibly could be. She’d never known safety could feel so sweet or so warm or so tender but every time she looks at him it does.

 

**XXI**

She should be happy. She _is_ happy, but as before on leaving Westeros, that happiness makes her uneasy. She had been happy in Winterfell too, and happy to go to King’s Landing, and then her family had been destroyed. She worries constantly about a phenomenon the sailors on the ship that brought them to Myr told her of: she worries this is the calm before the storm. As the weeks pass and that journey grows more and more distant she remembers standing on the deck and hunting for clouds, for any sign of a coming squall. She feels that way now, alert, searching. It will come, it will come, she knows it will come and the longer she waits for it the harder she finds the waiting.


	10. Part XXII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day! Much thanks to Lady Cyprus, who has assured me that you might all WANT to kill me but probably won't be able to find me.

**XXII**

She is not wrong that a storm is coming, though she is wrong in what she expects it to be. It doesn’t come as an attack or siege, or disease or death, but in the form of a young and handsome man, one of the household guards. Ahrend is Lysene yet speaks the Common Tongue, and somehow his path crosses hers often, though never when Sandor is with her. He is tall and well-built with sunbrowned skin, brown hair and sleepy hazel eyes. He watches her. She feels it, knows that he admires her, and she enjoys it because it seems harmless. Despite the lessons she has learned she has never fully forgotten her adoration of songs and stories, and it pleases her to imagine that if he admires her it is not due to desire but love, courtly and chaste.

He is many things her husband is not: charming, attractive, whole. He pays her sweet compliments of the kind Sandor is never like to bother with. She discovers he learned to read her language thanks to an illuminated book of Westerosi stories, and he knows all the ones she loves, and sometimes tells them to her. The more time they spend together, which is little enough yet probably more than it should be, the more she enjoys his company, and it is not long before she is slightly infatuated with him. But it doesn’t bother her, or worry her. Their flirtation is innocent, as in a song, and besides, there is something about the way Sandor fills her mind so completely that her girlish preference for the handsome guard never feels like a betrayal. She forgets him when he isn’t there. It’s just a bit of silly fun, rather like her previous adoration of Ser Loras.

She thinks this, she _believes_ this, right up until she finds herself alone with Ahrend in the walled-in garden behind the manse. He is there ostensibly to guard her, but she knows really it’s their little version of an innocuous rendezvous; her husband is in town on business, and she knows the man at arms has taken the opportunity to be alone with her, to flirt innocently with her. She is not opposed. When he offers her his arm she takes it without hesitation and strolls through the flowers with him, gracefully accepting his compliments and teasing him in return.

They stop beneath an elegant willow tree, and she is surprised when she looks up to find that Ahrend is standing very close to her. She can see the fine grain of his lightly tanned skin, clear and smooth, the hints of green lurking in his dark hazel eyes, and she sighs a little to herself because he really is so handsome. The girl who adored the pageantry of King’s Landing would have swooned over him, and though that girl is gone there is an echo of her inside of Sansa. There is nothing wrong with enjoying looking at something so beautiful, she tells herself.

But then he murmurs her name – not “my lady” or “Lady Sansa”, just “Sansa” – and then his strong hand is cupping her chin, lifting her face for his kiss. Before she can protest, his soft full lips descend upon hers.

There is a brief moment of shock, and when that moment is over… She doesn’t pull away.

It’s not that she wants to kiss him, or wants him to kiss her. Something in the back of her mind is screaming that this is a terrible, terrible mistake, in fact. But she ignores it. In all her life she’s only kissed Sandor and can’t help her curiosity, can’t help wondering what it might feel like to press her own mouth to one that is whole, unburned. Ahrend’s lips move over hers softly, unhurriedly, and she doesn’t resist when he slides his tongue into her mouth.

Despite the fact that she is in the arms of a man not her husband, being kissed by him, the whole thing still feels guiltless, nothing more than a childish experiment, a not-very-successful one. Really all she is learning is that it feels _wrong_ somehow, the bland symmetry of his smooth lips on hers. She misses the roughness at the corner of Sandor’s mouth, misses his size and strength as he holds her. Each kiss he gives her is a little world all its own, complicated, something to get lost in, while Ahrend’s is empty, flat.

Then it changes. His arms, well-muscled in comparison to any except her husband’s, tighten around her as he pulls her to him, and he deepens their kiss, plundering her mouth thoroughly, almost desperately. He’s hard, she can feel that through his breeches, and she knows well enough all the signs of a man’s desire. There is nothing innocent about what he clearly wants from her.

She wrenches herself out of his embrace and stares at him, shocked. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asks, sounding timid and dazed even to her own ears.


	11. Part XXIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your excellent comments on the last chapter! Everyone had really interesting analysis of what happened, and I was impressed by how the conversation stayed so civil even when there were disagreements. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to respond to everyone :( As I keep implying, my real life is in some turmoil right now, but reading your comments and death threats cheers me greatly :D 
> 
> Much thanks to Lady Cyprus for all her assistance, love and support <3

**XXIII**

“Forgive me, my love,” Ahrend says earnestly, reaching for her. “I meant to be gentle, but being alone with you like this… Your beauty overwhelmed my good sense.”

Quickly, she darts away from his grap, wary of what he might do if he gets his hands on her again, wary of the endearment bestowed upon her. “But what… Why…? What are you thinking? If my husband were to find out, he’d kill you with his bare hands.”

“Let him try!” The young man’s voice is fervent, passionate, almost trembling with emotion. “He cannot keep you his captive forever! You are so sweet, so beautiful… You’re wasted on that scarred dog.” 

Sansa feels strangely as though she’s fallen into a song she’s never heard, one she doesn’t know the words to, one she doesn’t especially like. He is handsome as a prince but she has never fared well with princes. “I’m not his captive, I’m his _wife_. This was all a mistake; I must be loyal to him. I _want_ to be loyal to him.”

“Loyalty is nothing compared to love, Sansa,” he tells her. “I know what you suffer at his hands, can hear you screaming late at night –” 

Oh gods, she thinks, blushing hard, nearly distracted from the horror of the situation by the horror of her embarrassment.

“– but it doesn’t have to be that way, not when there is love. I can show you just how sweet lying with a man who loves you can be.”

“I already know,” she says quietly, thinking of the way Sandor holds her close, the way he brings her pleasure again and again before taking his own, the way he kisses her so softly before cradling her in his arms and drifting off to sleep. “Believe me, Ahrend, my husband loves me. Whatever it is you think about… How we are together… He’s not... He’s gentle with me, and kind.”

“That brute?” he demands. “I’ll never believe it. You don’t have to say these things to me, my heart, don’t have to lie or hide your shame.” His hand drifts down to grip the handle of his sword. “Say the word and I’ll free you of him, and we can be together as we are meant to be.”

Sansa is embarrassed and confused and distressed, yet still has it in her to be amused at the thought of this stripling of a man-at-arms besting Sandor in any way. He must have a death wish, to think to challenge her husband. 

“I don’t want to be free of him,” she tells him firmly once she’s no longer afraid of laughing in Ahrend’s face. He’s sweet and so sincere, and she doesn’t want to be any more unkind than she has been already. This is her fault, she knows, for playing a game in fun without realizing he was playing in earnest. 

“Of course you do.”

“I don’t,” she repeats. “I know what it is to be held captive by a monster, but Sandor is not that man. Sandor saved me. He’s… My best friend. The best man I’ve ever known.” It hits her suddenly that all of these words would have once fallen false from her lips but now they taste true. They _are_ true. “I won’t hurt him or betray him, not for anyone or anything. I love him.”

_I love him_.

The look he gives her is filled with distress and pity. “It’s not possible,” he insists. “How has he hurt you, how has he threatened you, to turn you against me? Against our love?”

“Please,” she says, softly taking his hand in hers, never forgetting her courtesies though she is still so preoccupied by her sudden revelation. “He would never hurt me or threaten me. And I… I am so sorry, for making you think… I don’t wish to cause you pain, but I am a faithful and… And _loving_ wife.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he whispers desperately.

She shakes her head. “I do, I know what I’m saying and I mean it.” _For the first time, I mean it._ “You must go. Please, don’t seek me out again. I won’t tell my husband about any of this but if he should suspect… I cannot vouch for his temper, and I would not have you harmed for my mistakes.”

His handsome face relaxes then, solemn expression tinged with a sad smile. “You are too good, to sacrifice your happiness for my safety. But there is no need. I can take care of myself, and you too.”

“But –”

“You need time,” he tells her kindly. “But you will not always be afraid. I will come to you soon.” 

Closing her eyes, she exhales slowly, fighting for control of her frustration. “I’m not afraid –” she begins, only to be interrupted by the sounds of Sandor and his men riding past the garden wall towards the stables. And then she is afraid, though not for herself.

“I should go, before he finds us together,” Ahrend says, showing some sense at last, clasping her hands and squeezing them briefly. “We will speak further on this soon, my love.” 

He leaves the garden with one last lingering glance, and Sansa buries her head in her hands. She wishes suddenly and intensely that she could tell Sandor about all of this. He would know exactly what to do, she’s certain, if it had happened to anyone but her. As she is his wife, he’d as soon run Ahrend through as advise her on handling the situation diplomatically, and Sansa doesn’t want the young man hurt. In a way, he reminds her of her former self, so naïve and righteous with his head filled with stories and songs. None of this is his fault. He doesn’t deserve her husband’s wrath.

Her husband. Sandor. He is home, earlier than expected, and the thought of seeing him causes a nervous flutter in her belly. But there is a sweet, warm feeling of joy welling up inside of her, too, and she wraps her arms around herself, holding herself together when all she wants is to fly apart. She wants to go to him immediately, tell him how she feels, but then her love won’t be news to him… He’s always thought he had it.

It doesn’t matter, she tells herself. He has it now and that is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, confession time... When I started posting this, I had a HUGE lead on y'all... Like, 15k words worth of lead. Which I have now almost completely destroyed. So the wait for updates might get longer, and I'm very sorry. Things being what they are I don't know if it can be helped but I will do my best to keep the updates regular. Thank you for reading.


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